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Dallas, who arrived at the hotel after breakfast, to escort him to Russell’s house. To his dismay, the foreign secretary was not at home; a footman informed them that the family had been called suddenly to Woburn Abbey. Russell’s brother, the Duke of Bedford, had collapsed and was not expected to recover. Forced to delay his confrontation for a few days, Adams turned his attention to the family’s living situation. London had changed so much that he barely recognized it from the memories of his childhood. The city seemed ostentatious and gaudy; “shops fail in taste in everything here,” he wrote.24 His disapproval of English exhibitionism did not blind him to the fact that Dallas’s residence was far too modest for its purpose; the family would have to remain at the hotel until something grander was found. He was also irritated with Dallas for having neglected to renew the legation’s lease, which was ending in five days’ time.25 Adams responded to these twin challenges with stoicism, but Abigail’s fragile courage deserted her. Benjamin Moran was called to the hotel to reassure her that the Adamses would not be made social pariahs. Unconvinced, she insisted that he give the family a course in social etiquette. “Altogether I feel pretty sick and tired of the whole thing,” Henry Adams complained to Charles Francis Jr.26

Adams’s first invitation was from an MP named William Forster. Dallas’s inquiries about him revealed that Forster belonged to the Liberal Party and had been an MP for all of three months. Like John Bright, Forster was a Quaker from a northern mill town, in his case Bradford, whose wealth came from manufacturing. But there the similarities ended. Bright was not interested in small acts or minor details; in Anthony Trollope’s damning judgment, “It was his business to inveigh against evils, and perhaps there is no easier business.”27 Forster was a modest and sincere man who sought neither power nor popularity. These attributes inclined the House to be gentle toward the newcomer. His maiden speech on the slave trade had been listened to without interruption (although afterward he was informed by a fellow MP that in London one said la-MENT-able, not LA-ment-able).

Forster’s father had twice visited the United States to preach against slavery, in some places risking his life to be heard. Forster Sr.’s experiences had provided his son with an unsentimental attitude toward the South’s desire for secession. “A Mr. Gregory, MP, for Galway, who lately travelled in the South,” Forster wrote to a friend in America, “has returned well humbugged by the Southerners.” Gregory was talking all sorts of nonsense without anyone’s daring to challenge him: “I wish it had fallen into the hands of a member of more experience to stand up for the North and the Union; but I must do what I can.”28 Forster decided his first step should be to organize a meeting of pro-Northern MPs.

Adams accepted Forster’s invitation even though the date was set for May 16, the day of his presentation at court. When he arrived at Forster’s house, he was disconcerted to discover that there were only seven people at the meeting, three of whom were Americans. Neither John Bright nor Richard Cobden had bothered to come. Cassius Clay and the historian John Lothrop Motley were the other Americans. Forster introduced the first two MPs so quickly that Adams missed their names. But the third, Richard Monckton Milnes, impressed Adams at once. “One might discuss long whether, at that moment, Milnes or Forster were the more valuable ally, since they were influences of different kinds,” recalled Henry Adams.

Monckton Milnes was a social power in London … who knew himself to be the first wit in London, and a maker of men—of a great many men. A word from him went far. An invitation to his breakfast-table went farther.… William E. Forster stood in a different class. Forster had nothing whatever to do with May Fair [the fashionable center of London]. Except in being a Yorkshireman he was quite the opposite of Milnes. He had at that time no social or political position; he